Samus Aran said:
Now Roman religion is definitely interesting... I would say those in power "abused" the religion for their own (political) needs. That's what pretty much always happened. It's a polytheistic religion that serves the state. Romans didn't fear their gods, the gods helped them through all sorts of deals. Take sacrifices for example: the gods got the useless stuff no one eats and the rest was distributed to the people who were present at the sacrifice. :) It's a very practical religion. There were even ceremonies where the gods of enemies were allowed into the Roman pantheon. There also was no canon: you could believe what you want to believe, as long as you follow the correct rituals! There are many different and conflicting myths. I'm sure many Romans didn't believe in all that nonsense. The only thing that matters was following the correct rituals! If you fuck up a ritual that will mean doom for the state! So, very practical and ritualistic religion. No one would kill you if you said Jupiter didn't exist... As long as you followed all the correct rituals... |
Yes, this seems familiar! The more I hear of these ancient religions, the more I appreciate them actually. And yes, the nobilis would almost certainly abuse the religious power to gain political power, but it seems to me it was in such a manor that I would almost describe it as the reverse of what we have today. If that makes sense? :P
I guess that was one of the great things with ancient religion (and ultimately, its greatest weakness) it wasn't orginazed it the same way as christianity or islam.
Bolded: that also rings a bell! Very handy actually :P And if I remember correct, didn't erly christians adopt some of the rituals? That's why we have quite a few of them in catholicism?
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